VALDOSTA — The future of Forrest Street is uncertain and so is its history. 

Members of the People’s Tribunal began petitioning along Forrest last week in an effort to gain enough signatures to change the street’s name to Barack Obama Boulevard.

The civil rights group claims Forrest Street was named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also a Confederate general.

The Valdosta Daily Times has received calls and messages from readers who claim Nathan Bedford Forrest was a reformed racist and urged the Rev. Floyd Rose, People’s Tribunal president, to reconsider the effort to change the street name.

Rose said the Tribunal believes the street is named for Nathan Bedford Forrest based on research by Mark George, founder of the Mary Turner Project. George held a 2014 forum that focused on the legacy of slavery in Lowndes County.

The forum, held in partnership with Valdosta State University programs, related slavery to landmarks and street names in South Georgia.

George, along with VSU students and community members, conducted research that included documentation from the Lowndes County Historical Society and Museum, George said.

“During that research, we uncovered a number of things; for example, it wasn’t just Forrest Street that we found problematic,” George said.

The forum claimed Forrest, Patterson, Ashley, Troup, Gordon, Lee, Toombs and Briggs Street are all named after slave owners or Confederate leaders.

Research included Hill Avenue, Jerry Jones Drive, Converse Drive and Dasher Lane, he said.

“What we know about these street names and these county names and Confederate memorials is that they were all named after the South lost the war,” George said.

A 1972 Historical Society newsletter in the Heritage Room of the Willis L. Miller Library makes reference to the origin of street names but Forrest Street is not on the list.

Donald Davis, executive director of the Historical Society, has supplied minutes from an 1883 Valdosta City Council meeting mentioning an “Elbert Forrest” among a group of street names.

Based on these City Council minutes, some Times readers have said they believe Forrest Street was named for Elbert Forrest, a black businessman.

Some evidence through the Times investigation shows the street may not be named after a person at all. Some research indicates Forrest is simply misspelled and instead should be spelled Forest with one r.

In a 1989 Valdosta Daily Times report, the late Susan McKey Thomas, a Valdosta historian, said she discovered some street names had been misspelled.

“… And those misspellings have been accepted over the course of history,” the report states.

A source in the report states the misspellings could have come from human error or from the person’s lack of knowledge about the city. Though there’s no direct indication in the article that Forrest is one of the misspelled street names.

While definitive documentation of Forrest’s name is either lost or does not exist, the Tribunal continues its petition to rename the street.

Rose said the group should have all required signatures by the end of the week. The Tribunal needs signatures from 60 percent of the street’s residents. 

The next step is for the group to present the petition to Valdosta City Council.